


Press F to Pay Respects

by steviatea



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Character Death, Crack, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Not Serious, POV Jesse Pinkman, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steviatea/pseuds/steviatea
Summary: Walter White accidentally dies.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	Press F to Pay Respects

Jesse picked up his phone. It had been ringing about five times, and he really didn’t want to answer it on account of it being from Mr. White, but it felt rude not to answer when he was deeply emotionally indebted to the guy.

“Jesse? Jesse! Jesse, pick up the phone,” Walter grumbled from the other end of the phone.

“I already picked up, asshole. I’m right here,” Jesse answered, looking at Mike with an aggravated gesture as a means of venting his feelings. Mike didn’t appear particularly impressed, overall, with the fact that Jesse was talking to Walter to begin with. Even so, Jesse continued, “What do you want?”

“Jesse, I need you to meet me at Vamanos Pest right now. There’s something important we have to discuss. It’s about our business.”

“Can it wait? I’m about to have some dinner, and I’ve got, like, company,” Jesse groaned. He really didn’t want to deal with Walter right now. Glancing around the diner that he and Mike were sitting in, Jesse placed his face in his palm.

“Company?” Walter scoffed, rather condescending. “Since when do you have company, Jesse? As far as I’m concerned, you have nobody. Come over here this instant, or I’m not giving you your half of our next cook, and I’m not going to...”

Grimacing, Jesse set his phone down before he could hear the rest of what the other man was saying, leaving Walter to ramble endlessly on the other end of the phone. Mike looked over to Jesse, raising his eyebrows.

“Is that something I should be concerned about?” Mike asked in a tone of voice so paternal that Jesse’s eyebrows raised a bit.

“It’s Mr. White,” Jesse whispered softly in response, covering the microphone on his cellphone. “Asshole says he wants me to come over to Vamanos, like, right now. The hell am I supposed to do? We haven’t even gotten our food yet.” God, Jesse was so stressed right now; he could feel his own anxiety causing his heartbeat to pick up its pace by, like, tenfold.

Mike sighed, letting out a disinterested groan. “Let me go with you, kid. I’ll help you handle it. That man is _bad_ news, and I don’t want you handling him on your lonesome.”

“Are you sure?” Jesse asked, wincing. It was nice of Mike to offer — hell, Jesse preferred it that way, because he really didn’t want to be left alone with Walter, and he’d way rather spend time with Mike anyhow. Still, he felt guilty for dragging Mike into more of his personal bullshit with his cooking partner. “I mean, I feel bad just, I don’t _know…_ I just, _uh,_ don’t wanna involve you in this shit when you don’t _gotta_ be involved, you know?”

“Trust me, Jesse,” Mike said in a sober tone, his serious eyes meeting Jesse’s, “You don’t need to get anymore personally involved with Walter than you already have. I’m coming with you.” Was that protectiveness in his eyes? Jesse was almost certain it was.

Jesse nodded his head rather quietly, swallowing thickly. He could feel his eyes welling up with tears at the mere thought of Mike being this willing to protect him from Walter; he couldn’t even count the number of times that he’d regretted dealing with that man on his own. “Okay,” he manages to get out, clearing his throat and rubbing at his tired eyes with the backs of his shaking hands. “Thanks, man.”

Just as Jesse began to climb out of the booth, however, Mike stopped him with a, “Now, wait a second.”

“What?” Jesse asked, eyes wide with concern over being stopped.

“Let’s not rush it. Walter can _handle_ the inconvenience, kiddo.” Mike rolled his eyes, remaining seated as he took his napkin from the table, opening it up and placing it on his lap in a rather polite manner. “There’s no way we’re gonna dine and dash for that asshole. Get yourself situated.”

“Okay,” Jesse replied, taking a shaky deep breath. “Okay, that’s… that’s cool, ‘cause I’m still pretty hungry. I was looking forward to that corn and the cob, anyway.” Sobriety was tough, after all; back when Jesse was using, he’d often find himself skipping breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now, he had to keep up with eating, lest he get faint and lightheaded; that was the last thing he wanted to be when interacting with a man who was already incredibly draining.

Jesse enjoyed his dinner with Mike and absolutely dreaded the ride over to the Vamanos Pest building, which Mike very kindly provided with his own car. It was quite late at night when they arrived; the crickets could be heard chirping from outside and the New Mexico sky was deep and dark, filled with at least a _few_ visible stars. Jesse shivered, arms wrapped around himself in an attempt to keep himself stable; he wasn’t so much shivering out of being cold as he was shivering from anxiety. Dealing with his lab partner made him feel physically ill at times, and often it was his own imagination that led him to envision the worst about to happen.

Mike rested a supportive hand on his shoulder. “I’m right here, okay? You don't need to deal with interacting with that man on your own.”

Jesse nodded. Walking into the building for Vamanos Pest, he was greeted by an irate Walter.

“Jesse, what took you so long?” The older man was clearly disappointed, but when he noticed Mike following Jesse in, he became even more flustered. “Why the hell is he here? Mike, you weren’t invited.”

“We were busy eating dinner when you called,” Mike replied, annoyed but not necessarily angry; he spoke to the chemist as if he were scolding a child. “What the hell could you possibly want at this hour, Walter?”

“Well, _Mike,_ since you decided to show up here,” Walter started, beginning to walk across the floor of the old building. The fluorescent lighting flickered from above as he began pacing angrily, continuing, “I _suppose_ I can just talk to you about this completely confidential information that I intended to only be accessible to Jesse. Sure, that sounds perfectly decent.” Evidently, he was being sarcastic in an anal-retentive, self-important douchebag kind of way — typical behavior of his.

“Mr. White, c’mon,” Jesse pleaded, holding his open hands out in the air in a rather helpless, exhausted expression of his feelings. “Work with me on this. What’s going on?”

However, it was far too late to ask such a question. Walter had gotten so busy with angrily pacing that he accidentally walked onto a tarp. Suddenly, gravity was no longer on his side, for he slipped on the tarp and fell, hitting his head against a shelf. Then, equally as sudden, the shelf was disturbed and all of the contents knocked over, effectively hitting Walter on the head.

“Oh, _Jesus Christ,”_ Jesse exclaimed in a sudden panic, shocked as he rushed over to Walter. “Mr. White, hey! Are — are you okay?”

Mike checked Walter’s pulse, taking a deep breath. “Well, shit,” he murmured, pausing. He appeared rather hesitant, staring at Walter for a considerable amount of time before he looked back up, squinting at Jesse. “You’re not going to like hearing this.”

Jesse was absolutely horrified, staring Walter as he lay on the ground. “What, Mike? What am I not gonna like to hear?” Walter was suspiciously motionless, almost as if he were no longer breathing.

“He’s completely dead,” Mike told Jesse rather matter-of-factly.

Jesse rushed to Walter’s side, beginning to lift the objects that had fallen over, which included incredibly heavy hardback volume on the lifecycle of household insect pests, and a couple rocks that Todd had set onto the shelf as a decoration.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this man is dead,” Mike explained with a rather straight face. He didn’t appear remotely grief-stricken or panicked. Shit, if Jesse had to take a wild guess, he might even think that Mike was relieved.

“Dead?” Jesse wheezed, clearly not catching up to the reality of Mr. White being _fucking dead._ He couldn’t believe a single word that Mike was saying. “What the hell do you mean, dead? Like, _dead-dead?_ For... for _real?”_

“Yep, he’s dead, alright,” Mike confirmed with a heavy sigh. “We’re going to need to get a barrel for him.”

“Whoa, no. No way. We gotta, like, call the cops or an ambulance or some shit,” Jesse protested with panic in his eyes. “It's neither of our faults that this happened. Neither of us killed him. We're, like, legally allowed to do do that without getting in any kinda trouble, right?"

Making a rather disagreeing face that suggested his disappointment in Jesse's staggering lack of _crime savvy-ness,_ Mike shook his head, looking down at Walter's corpse with a great deal of disappointment. “Believe me, we’ll most certainly be in a hell of a lot of trouble if the cops come here and find out what you and him were planning on cooking up. It’s for the best if we just get rid of him as soon as possible.”

Jesse felt sick to his stomach. “I didn’t even know what he was going to say to me, man. I can’t believe he’s just _dead.”_

Mike glanced haphazardly at Walter’s dead body. “I’m not exactly sorry for your loss,” he said rather flatly, without any intense amount of emotion to his tone, “Go home and get some rest, Jesse. I’ll take care of disposing of the body.”

Jesse simply nodded his head, grateful for Mike's help, but nevertheless startled as shit. He had absolutely no idea what the fuck to say, as he was _completely_ in shock over the fact that Walter had suddenly died. His fear had been replaced, all so suddenly, with a sudden sense of unidentifiable emotions. Truly, how was one supposed to feel when their business partner suddenly died in such a freak way?

“God, Mr. White,” Jesse whispered to his former chemistry teacher’s corpse, still having trouble parsing what the fuck had just happened. “Rest in peace, man.”

Walter did not utter a single word in response, for he was very much deceased.


End file.
